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Researchers at Culham have developed novel virtual engineering techniques over the years – and one of the latest initiatives being pursued by staff is virtual qualification.

The initiative is led by Dr Llion Evans, a researcher in Culham's Technology Department, as part of his role at CCFE and as a EUROfusion research fellow.

Experimental testing is currently essential to ensure the quality of new components in high-value manufacturing (HVM). This is particularly true when component failure might be challenging or even impossible to rectify, such as in a satellite or nuclear reactor. Unfortunately, testing can often be prohibitively expensive, ineffective when it is not able to recreate in-service conditions or only capable of giving unspecific pass/fail results.

Virtual qualification uses 3D X-ray imaging to create micro-accurate digital replicas for part-specific simulations. This has the potential to replace costly and time-consuming experimental testing and improve on pass/fail testing by assessing defects for performance impact.

Now the UK's Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has identified the area of virtual qualification as being of strategic importance to the UK manufacturing sector – awarding Dr Evans a five-year research fellowship to further explore his vision of seeing image-based modelling transforming the way HVM component qualification is performed.

The technique currently requires significant manual interaction over a timescale of weeks per component. Production line manufacturing is well suited to automation of virtual qualification but challenges remain, particularly regarding automated 3D X-ray image processing.

Image-based modelling accounts for deviations caused by manufacturing processes not considered by design-based simulations, for example due to tolerancing or micro-defects. This has applications in advanced manufacturing wherever there is variability from one component to another, e.g. joining, additive manufacturing or composites. Thus it is of interest to aerospace and the wider energy sector outside fusion.

The team is led by Dr Llion Evans and based at Swansea University – an institution established by Prof Olek Zienkiewicz as a birthplace for finite element analysis (vital to this technique) and is now recognised as a leading research centre in the field.

Culham will be a leading partner on the £1.2m fellowship acting as an end-user for the technique. This will entail working on a case-study to showcase the capabilities of virtual qualification on a batch of heat exchange components. This activity will closely align with aims of the newly-announced Fusion Technology Facilities (FTF) at Culham that will support industry with a range of test and design capabilities, preparing them to bid for forthcoming major ITER contracts.

The interest in the potential of this research is such that the list of collaborators also includes Nikon Metrology Ltd., Diamond Light Source, Synopsys Inc., University of Manchester, TWI and Airbus.

Dr Evans said: “My main motivation in my research is to develop technologies that will contribute towards reducing environmental impact, particularly ones facilitating the realisation of fusion energy. My aim in leading this fellowship is to have a key role in knowledge transfer between academia and industry."